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Thursday, December 5, 2013

The Writing Process Blog Tour

G’day mates.

Today I am taking yet another opportunity to talk about
myself by participating in The Writing Process Blog Tour, where I answer a
handful of questions about my writerly ways and then force three other authors
to do the same. Splendid.

The torch has been passed to be courtesy of Steve McHugh,
author of ALL
THESE BOOKS.

So. Onto it.

1. What am I working
on?

Not being lazy.

But seriously. I’m working on working harder. Putting more
effort into what’s on my plate. The current entrée is THE MATERIALS MAGICIAN,
the third book in my unnamed series that I can’t call The Magicians because that’s super taken already. My deadline for
this book is a ways away, which may contribute to said laziness, but I would
like to get the first draft out before I birth my spawn.

On the side, I’m planning stories. Not sure what will suit
my fancy once TMM is off the RADAR.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Hmm… good question. It sits in that still semi-awkward New
Adult/YA-crossover genre. I like to think TMM, along with its predecessors, are
a tad on the quirky side, sort of Howl’s
Moving Castle-esque, albeit with a historical flare. That, and one of my
side characters is a paper dog. That counts as different, right?

3. Why do I write
what I do?

I’ve dabbled in many different forms of fantasy—epic,
romantic, YA—but I always write fantasy because for me, writing is about going
outside the walls of our world. While I like to read a contemporary or
historical every now and then, I want to delve into stories that can’t happen on our earth. Stories that don’t appear on the news. My brain likes
to linger among the incredible, and when I can’t find exactly what I want in a
book, I must create it myself!

4. How does your
writing process work?

Well, it starts with an idea.

Der.

I get an idea, usually involving a magic system or a
specific character (for TMM, it was the magic system; I liked the idea of
working spells via origami). I let the idea sprout in my brain and write down
notes of how such and such would work, or what the bigger plot line would be.
Frequently I store these ideas away, but if an idea is gripping enough, it gets
pushed to the front of the line.

Then I outline. I’m a big outliner, and I keep notebooks on
hand so I can jot down any plot idea or character or whatever that comes to my mind, because I hate the idea of
forgetting it. Lately I start my outlines by storyboarding them Save the Cat style, AKA on my wall with
post-it notes.

Then I write. Nothing too secretive or fancy going on here.
I take a chunk of my outline and paste it into a Word doc, then reference it as
I create each chapter. I’m usually pretty boss at drafting if I’m excited about
the idea.

When I’m done, I fork the raw meat over to my alpha readers,
other writers who will read it and tell me all the BIG problems. I take a break
while this happens, and once I get all the feedback, I make another draft,
which goes to my beta readers, or non-writers who will read the book and help
me with smaller things, including grammar.

Then I proofread the thing myself and throw it at my agent.
Or something. Very business-like, I’ll have you know.

I utterly and completely hear you about writing fantasy because you want stuff that can't or doesn't happen in the real world. I talked to a co-worker who said she didn't like reading about things that couldn't happen, and I just sort of... stared at her for a second. Try as I might, I couldn't get my head around that mindset. @_@